Entries about nature

overview / intro

It was hot !
Like it only got down to 80 at night. And the clear sky allowed the sun to blaze during the day for 100+ degree days.
However that definitely added to the environment. The other worldly landscape that is Arches and Canyonlands national parks in eastern Utah (and a bit of the Colorado National Monument in western Colorado) is what I image a remote desolate trip to Mars would be like.

We took the 4Runner way off road to find a campsite by a dry river bed but with some large cottonwood trees to provide some shade and cover. Through the extended weekend, we also took the 4Runner on some rocky back roads to explore the challenging driving conditions that make the Moab area such a destination for off roading enthusiasts. Even taking "easier" paths with my limited off roading experience, we still got to experience driving on narrow ledges with hundreds of feet of drop off just past the tires, and some slick rock chunks that couldn't even be considered a road. That absolutely needed 4WD low speed and even got a tire off the ground for some 3-wheel driving.

The first day in the park was spent near the entrance. There is basically one main road in the park that goes out and comes back through the entrance. The closest hikes are for park avenue, Lasal mountain overlook, and courthouse towers view. A little further and about half way along the main park road is one of the most popular stops. It includes Balanced Rock and then two shorter hiking paths (less than a mile). One goes to Double Arch and one loops around the North and South windows arches. To complete the day, we also went to the next stop to go on a hike (about 2 miles) to see the well known and photographed Delicate Arch. After an afternoon nap in the heat, we also headed back into the park to catch the sunset from different viewpoints and behind different rock formations.

The second day was completely spent at the farthest point of the park. There you can start a long hike for the Devils Garden trail. It's about 10 miles for the full experience and provides well over a dozen arches and unique rock landscapes. Near there is where the only main campground is within the park (there are a couple back country tent sites) and that provides access to a few other small hikes to additional arches.

Overall, this is one of the most unique national parks in the world with an environment unlike anything you will normally see. Highly recommended.

Recommend:

• Devil's Garden trail
• Delicate Arch
• Double Arch
• the Windows

Trip Map

Pictures

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USA Utah album

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Links

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overview / intro

For the long Memorial weekend, we decided to get some dispersed camping in. That's where you find federal lands that you can drive over off-road paths to get to primitive camp sites that are far away from others and real close to the natural wilderness.

We headed towards the Utah and Colorado border to get away from big cities and people too. The first couple nights we stayed within the Ashley National Forest. It's in north east Utah with lots to see and do. There were dinosaur tracks, arch hikes, man made reservoir, gorge, recreation area, forest, mountains, and some great views. Also, there was time to roast some marshmallows.

Then we headed to the Colorado side of things. We went through the Dinosaur National Monument for some hiking and camping. On our way back to Denver, we swung by and drove through the Colorado National Monument too.

Recommend:

• Harpers Corner in Dinosaur National Park
• Drive through Colorado National Monument & stop at all the view points
• Drive through Douglas Pass on highway 139
• Red Canyon visitor center - hike and view over Green River
• Moonshine Arch hike
• Red Fleet State Park

Trip Map

Pictures

see more on Facebook Murk Travels albums
USA Colorado album
USA Utah album

Moonshine Arch (Utah)

Red Canyon & Green River (Utah)

State Park (Utah)

dispersed camping site - scenic, quiet, and so peaceful (Colorado)

Dinosaur National Monument (Colorado)

Independence Canyon (Colorado)

Red Canyon (Colorado)

Links

MurkTravels Vimeo - videos of my trips & entertainment
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MurkTravels Facebook page - pictures, posts, and regular updates
MurkTravels Facebook photo albums
MurkTravels Instagram - my attempt at artistic travel images
MurkTravels Travel Map - all the places that I've been and the things that I've seen

overview / intro

During the spring, we decided to escape some of the lock down blues and venture into nature for some hiking.

It's a great time in the spring to have cooler temps (but you warm up when hiking) and to see some snow cover, but it's not too deep so that you can still walk through it. The skies are usually clear and bright during this time too. We saw a handful of people on each hike, but there's so much space that everyone could keep adequate distant and enjoy the nature within their own groups.

White Ranch Park:

• in Jefferson county near Golden
• hiked part of the Belcher, Maverick, and Longhorn trails
• https://www.jeffco.us/1437/White-Ranch-Park/

Deer Creek Canyon Park:

• in Jefferson county near Ken Caryl
• hiked Meadowlark and Plymouth Mountain trails
• https://www.jeffco.us/1208/Deer-Creek-Canyon-Park

North Table Mountain:

• in Jefferson county near Golden
• hiked the Mesa Top and Table loop trails
• https://www.jeffco.us/1427/North-Table-Mountain-Park

Pictures

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USA Colorado ablum

Links

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MurkTravels Facebook photo albums
MurkTravels Instagram - my attempt at artistic travel images
MurkTravels Travel Map - all the places that I've been and the things that I've seen

Blanca

This peak is part of potentially 4 that one could down in southern Colorado near the Great Sand Dunes. Again, this is a hike that I needed the 4Runner. There's 7 miles of road up to a lake to where the real hiking trail begins. I drove about 4 miles of the road before it got really rough - the truck could have handled it, but my off roading experience isn't quite up for that challenge yet. We camped out overnight in a protected pull off site and starting early the next day.

Even a 6 am start was tough going to cover the 3 miles of rough rock road, and then another 4 miles up what is basically a big pile of rocks. There were definite steep drops off some cliff faces, and exposure to high winds as we climbed up a ridge to the top. One section was pretty much boulder climbing and many minutes I just laid low and hung on to whatever rocks were closest.

The goal for the day was to also do Ellingwood, which shares part of the same approach, and there's a ridge connecting the too. However, we were exhausted, it looked even tougher to climb and we couldn't find where the path split off (remember that it's a pile of rocks with a rock path going up it and piles of cairn rocks to guide your way, so it's tough to spot which are the real rocks to follow). Later, we're glad we headed down early as we got a downpour of water for the last 2 or so miles of hiking. What a fun challenging hike, one of the toughest ones I've ever done.

Relive video of the hikes

Grays & Torreys link: https://www.relive.cc/view/vr63JEV23dO
Blanca link: https://www.relive.cc/view/vRO7GpVG5KO

Pictures

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and 14ers album

One of the easier sections of the road to the trailhead. This is after we parked, and didn't see any vehicles after this point.

Chasing the sun up the mountain

One of the many lakes we hiked by

Climbing up Blanca's ridge, with Ellingwood in the background

Proof at the top

Links

MurkTravels Vimeo - videos of my trips & entertainment
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MurkTravels Facebook photo albums
MurkTravels Instagram - my attempt at artistic travel images
MurkTravels Travel Map - all the places that I've been and the things that I've seen

Gray's & Torrey's

These twin peaks are a somewhat close drive from Denver, but I heard horror stories of the road leading from the highway to the trailhead. If you don't have a high clearance 4WD, then it's another 3 miles each way before and after your hike. These are a couple easier hiking options, but I didn't ever want to add 6 or more miles of gravel road walking. Now that I have the 4Runner, Chris and I decided to knock these peaks off the to do list.

A semi early departure of about 5 am got us to the road. It certainly was rough, but did see some lower cars made it up part of the way. They must have some adventurous drivers. We got near the trailhead for parking and saw quite a few people had camped there over night. Good idea for future trips. The most used path up to either peak is straight forward and has a consistent up hill grind. There's also a Kelso Ridge route option that gets more into class 3 to 4 rock climbing, but we decided to wait on that for a future trip.

The most exciting part of the trip was on the way down. We had to cross a snow field. Previously hikers had crossed and worn down a path, enough so that we could slide down part of it but on a gradual descent section on the trail. We thought that was it, but next saw some people just off the trail, sliding straight down the mountain in a valley. What I came to learn was 'glissading'. Before I knew it, Chris jumped into the snow and started sliding down too. So I followed. It was slick, steep, and scary. We slid for several hundred feet, and then dropped off a ridge and onto an even steeper part. It took a few minutes to probably drop down 700-800 feet of elevation. Quite thrilling, and only ended up with some soaked pants and jackets.

Relive video of the hike

Grays & Torreys link: https://www.relive.cc/view/vr63JEV23dO
Blanca link: https://www.relive.cc/view/vRO7GpVG5KO

Pictures

see more on Facebook Murk Travels albums
and 14ers album

the moon is still out

the sun is on the way

view farther into the Rockies

celebrate

at the top

an easy section to walk/slide down

the steep section we glissaded down - you can't even make out the few little specks of people at the top or the path we slid down

Links

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MurkTravels Facebook page - pictures, posts, and regular updates
MurkTravels Facebook photo albums
MurkTravels Instagram - my attempt at artistic travel images
MurkTravels Travel Map - all the places that I've been and the things that I've seen

classic spa

After leaving Tokyo, we headed to the area of Odawara and Hakone, to spend the night at a ryokan. It's a traditional Japanese inn, involving shoes off, straw mat floors, mattress on floor for bedding, tea ceremony, traditional meals, with kimono-like robes ... all very authentic. There was also public and private onsens (hot springs water spa) available. It was very relaxing. The one we chose was also close to the Japanese museum for the Little Prince book, including a replica French town and information about the author's life. Sharon is a big fan, so we checked that out before hopping another bullet train (Shinkansen) to the former capital of Kyoto.

classic Japan

Kyoto, the very historic and ancient Japanese city. It's well known for all the shrines, temples, and religious sites. Here we saw a lot of locals and families dressed in traditional kimonos and clothes. First up was a smaller Buddhist temple that we randomly stumbled upon taking a back way (a less crowded way) to a more famous site. I don't even remember the name of it (Otani?), but it was very peaceful. Then onto a large packed site of Kiyomizu-dera. It has a very instagram infamous temple balcony as well as several pagodas. It's part of the UNESCO world heritage site within Kyoto made up of several temple grounds. We then wandered around the historic area of Gion and found the Hokanji temple pagoda (which was a famous picture we used as the background photo of our trip plan).

Our second day in Kyoto involved a quick train ride a little south of town center. That took us to Fushimi Inari. It's a mountain (really a small hill, compared to Colorado living) that is covered in orange torii gates as memorials to relatives that have passed away. Some are huge enough to walk through (they go over the pathways), while others are small hand held versions just laying around. There's miles of trails and tens of thousands of the gates. We walked to the top of the mountain and had some great views of the city. We ended our time in the city at Nishiki market. It had all authentic local food and crafts, and not so tourist based souvenir junk seen at a lot of popular markets in Japan.

Recommend:

• a stay at a ryoken w/ an onsen
• Kiyomizu-dera
• Fushimi Inari
• timing - if you're really into temples and history you could spend a week here. we only had a couple partial days to see some of the famous sites that were relatively close to the train station. but there's a ton more that was on our list that we could have done if there was more time: silver pagoda, bamboo forest, golden temple, parks, philosophers walk

Japan Trip
Tokyo
Kyoto and Hakone
Nagoya
Osaka

Trip Map

Pictures

View of Kyoto and Kiyomizu-dera

the Gion pagoda

orange torii gates at Fushimi Inari

Murk Travels - Japan album
see more on Facebook Murk Travels albums

Links

MurkTravels Vimeo - videos of my trips & entertainment
MurkTravels Youtube - videos of my trips & entertainment
MurkTravels Facebook page - pictures, posts, and regular updates
MurkTravels Facebook photo albums
MurkTravels Instagram - my attempt at artistic travel images
MurkTravels Travel Map - all the places that I've been and the things that I've seen

overview / intro

To end 2018 and start 2019, I planned a road trip throughout the state of New Mexico. I had plans to stop by Sante Fe (for the Meow Wolf exhibit) and Roswell (for the alien museum), but the main focus was to be on camping in the back of my truck and seeing state and national parks: Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, Gila, Bandelier, Carson, Taos.

However, since the federal government were acting like children and decided to shut down, all the parks were closed. I realized after I had started. So I got a few days and nights on the road, but cut the trip short, right after celebrating New Years.

Recommend:

• Meow Wolf, Sante Fe - more coming to Las Vegas and Denver soon !
• International UFO museum, Roswell

Pictures

see more on Facebook Murk Travels events and races album

https://www.facebook.com/pg/MurkTravels/photos/?tab=album&album_id=2415219085378669|Murk Travels - New Mexico album]]

UFO Museum - included a lot of historical and scientific information in additional to alien stuff

Meow Wolf - probably only make sense if you've been there and witnessed the craziness

Links

MurkTravels Vimeo - videos of my trips & entertainment
MurkTravels Youtube - videos of my trips & entertainment
MurkTravels Facebook page - pictures, posts, and regular updates
MurkTravels Facebook photo albums
MurkTravels Instagram - my attempt at artistic travel images
MurkTravels Travel Map - all the places that I've been and the things that I've seen